


the omega phi gamma handbook of vice-presidential duties

by thescrewtapedemos



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fraternity, M/M, Mutual Pining, more knitting and board games than you would expect from a story about a frat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 22:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18291398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: “I’m instituting a swear jar,” Mark says.





	the omega phi gamma handbook of vice-presidential duties

**Author's Note:**

> a brief and non-exhaustive list of the things i googled to write this fic:   
> -does canada have frats  
> -operation board game rules  
> -abc party ideas for men  
> -wikihow staging an intervention  
> -how the hell do you pronounce hellebuyck correctly  
> -shades of orange
> 
> thank you to moliver and greymichaela for beta! yall the real ones. 
> 
> enjoy xoxo

Like so many other developments in Mark’s life, such as joining a frat or declaring for a nursing program, he is not entirely sure how he was roped into being president of the Board Game Club. 

Like, he can trace the linear steps of his life, more or less, for the most part, with the exception of joining Omega Phi Gamma. Which has been sort of lost to time and the jaeger-induced fogginess of memory. For the rest of it there’d been documents to sign and people to talk to and like, okay, he knows _how_ he’d gotten here. It’s just like… why is he _here?_

“Because Monopoly is fucking dope,” Boeser says without looking up from the pack of cards he’s shuffling with a kind of off-putting level of focus. “Stop whining and roll the dice.” 

“Is your turn,” Big Z agrees idly, spinning his empty Mountain Dew bottle between his palms. He barely fits into the rickety folding chair they’d scrounged up to populate their dingy little basement room, but he seems perfectly content to sprawl all fifty miles of arm and leg into everyone else’s space, so Mark meanly doesn’t feel obligated to get him a better chair. 

Mark grumbles and rolls the dice. He gets a six and a three and collects his Community Chest card. It’s a Get Out of Jail Free card. He slaps it down next to his neat little stack of property deeds. 

“I’m just saying,” he sighs. “I don’t know why I’m here.” 

Larkin looks up from his phone when Big Z kicks out under the table. 

“What, what?” he demands. 

“Is your turn now,” Big Z says genially. “Stupid.” 

“Oh, fuck, alright,” Larkin says and nearly knocks over every single stack of cards and hotels in trying to reach across the board for the dice. “What’s Scheifs whining about now?” 

“He’s having one of those things,” Boeser says and fans the cards between his fingers like a total showoff. He’s forgetting that his current captive audience watched his painstaking practice in order to be able to do that, and just how many times the deck of cards had ended up all over the floor in the process. “You know, the existing crisis things. Where you’re sad that your life is boring and you’re not getting laid.” 

“Hey!” Mark yelps. 

“Oh, fuck,” Larkin says and pats Mark’s shoulder earnestly. “My condolences, my dude.” 

“Is an existential crisis,” Big Z says. He’s on his phone now. “Motherfucker moron. Larkin, is still your turn.” 

“Fuck you,” Boeser says, sounding affronted. Larkin rolls the dice and manages to knock both of them off opposite ends off the table. 

“I’m gonna introduce a swear jar, guys,” Mark says unhappily. 

“Like fuck you will,” Boeser says.

-/-

Omega Phi Gamma house is not quite the best frat house on campus, on account of sharing a row with Pi Iota Theta, but it’s pretty far up there. At least, Mark loves it.

The kitchen always has ramen and the bathroom is nearly always passably clean and they have the biggest backyard by miles. Blake is the best fraternity president on the whole campus and probably in any chapter of Omega Phi Gamma too. Plus no one’s had sex on Mark’s bed even once this semester. And the fact that that ‘no one’ definitely really does include himself doesn’t even bother Mark. 

Boeser can shut up, though. 

“This is a really well-thought-out community outreach plan,” Blake says, flicking from the page with the graphs Mark had spent far too long convincing Excel to spit out to the page where he’d given up and drawn in a chart by hand because not even O-Chem has done as much damage to Mark’s psyche as the Microsoft Office software suite. His tone is even and absolutely impossible to read, as always. 

It's Mark's job as vice president to outline, implement, and oversee the Omega Phi Gamma community outreach programs. It says so right in the handbook. It does not say in the handbook anything whatsoever about how to hand said community outreach program outline to the intimidating frat president. Mark really wishes it did. He’s mostly gotten over his- his _whatever_ , but whenever he needs to act like a vice president to Blake’s president he gets all nervy and weird again. 

“... but?” he prompts after a second. 

Blake looks up at him and blinks. His face doesn’t really make an expression, per se, but it does kind of somehow convey a vague sort of surprise. 

“But what?” he asks after a moment. “It’s a good plan, you have my full support. I’ll call a house meeting in like a day or two if that sounds good. I really like the thing with the dogs, that’ll be cool.” 

“Oh, but, I thought-,” Mark says, and then cuts himself off, because his mom is always trying to remind him that being self-defeating never got anyone anywhere and that he needs to be more assertive. “Uh, yeah, I’ll get a little presentation thing ready for that? If you’re cool with that?” 

“For sure,” Blake says and smiles vaguely and slaps Mark’s shoulder. “I trust you.” 

“Thanks,” Mark says faintly to Blake’s back as he walks away and then looks at the way he’s crumpling up his own copy of the community outreach plan. He’s probably going to have to print another one, he thinks dismally; he can tell his palms are sweaty.

-/-

To say that it is a tradition for Brandon and Adam to hook up at the tri-annual Omega Phi Gamma ABC Pre-Midterms Sufferingstravaganza would be understating it.

Mark had kind of assumed the first semester of freshman year was a fluke and suffered through the week of nuclear winter around the dorm room he’d shared with Adam at the time. It had lasted until Andrew, their president that year, had sat Adam and Brandon down to say Presidential-type things at them. They’d sort of made up after that, as much as two people whose relationship was based in baking and shouting at each other could make up. 

And then they’d done it again at the next Sufferingstravaganza. And then the third one. And then they hit sophomore year, Andrew had graduated with a loving ‘fuck all of you, don’t call me to bail you out of the campus cops office ever again’ speech, and Blake had gotten universally elected in his place. All of them had moved into the house, and Adam and Brandon had proceeded to hook up _three more times_. 

“We need to set up some kind of Adam and Brandon Interference Patrol,” Buffs says, drumming his knuckles on the counter next to his steaming cup of one-third coffee, two-thirds pumpkin-flavored creamer. 

“I don’t know why I have to help you with this,” Mark says plaintively. “You’re the Officer of Party Planning.” 

“You’re Vice-Prez,” Buffs says and takes a sip of what has to be at least 80% plastic flavored to taste kind of like someone had looked at a pumpkin while stirring the industrial vat. “Plus everyone listens you. They trust you.” 

“Everyone listens to you too!” Mark protests, even though he can feel himself weakening. He’s always been weak for responsibility. It’s, like, his fatal flaw. Buffs grins at him knowingly. Buffs is the worst. 

“Everyone listens to me ‘cuz they’re scared of me,” he says. “Just help me out, bro, if I have to watch Adam mope around the house because Brandon won’t play with his peepee more than three times annually for one more year I’m gonna fuckin’ lose it.” 

“Gross,” Mark says weakly. Buffs slaps his shoulder and Mark nearly goes into the dishwasher with the force of it. 

“That’s the spirit,” Buffs says like some kind of middle-aged suburban father of three. “I’ll handle the streamer budget, you can coordinate with Wheels on keeping Adam from climbing on Brandon’s dick in public again.”

-/-

The second Tuesday of every month is Mario Kart night. This is sacrosanct, and the one time Troubs had missed it Mark’s freshman year Andrew had him run suicides on the front lawn while the Pi Iota Theta boys had stood around and watched. No one’s missed it while Blake’s been president. Mark’s pretty sure they’re all kind of scared of what Blake could come up with as a penalty.

Roslovic had shown up once with the stomach flu. They’d needed to retire the corner recliner with great honors after that. 

It’s pretty great, though. The entire house plus whatever lowly freshmen had been foolish enough to make it through rushing and had to stick it out in the dorms, crammed onto one couch and three recliners plus whatever floor space they could grab. Mark loves it, and he’s not even saying that because his privileged officer position usually ends with him crammed into the corner of a couch with Blake. 

His entire thigh is pressed up against Blake's so that he can feel how lean and rangy it is. He’s had three shots so far. Like… nice. 

On the other hand, this leaves him with a beautiful and horrifying view of the impending house feuds. He’d seen Connor and Pavelec coming from a mile away, is all he’s saying. 

“-and that’s a _crisp_ DM,” Adam says and Brandon snorts like he actually understood what Adam’s talking about. He’s looking at Adam through his eyelashes. Mark realizes with dawning horror that he probably knew exactly what Adam was talking about. 

_You two are made for each other,_ he narrowly avoids saying, standing resolutely by his decision not to get involved in anything to do with the absolute circus that is any space between Adam Lowry and Brandon Tanev. It has, historically, never ended well for anyone. 

“You’re so fucking dumb,” Brandon says, but affectionately. Across the room, where only Mark can really see it, Troubs mimes throwing up into his hands. Mark sympathizes. 

“I’m getting a drink,” Mark says and gets to his feet. In the process he elbows Brandon into Adam. If it was on purpose only God can judge him. “Anyone else want anything?” 

“I-,” Adam begins. 

“No?” Mark says. “Cool, be right back.” 

“Aww,” Adam says as Mark walks away, sounding genuinely crestfallen. Mark continues walking. He refuses to feel bad for someone with their hand that high up on Brandon’s thigh.

-/-

The thing with the puppies is _mostly_ because Mark really cares about the impact of low-kill shelters and the importance of consistency in the rehabilitation and socialization of rescue animals. It is also, Mark will admit only reluctantly, pretty great therapy for when classes start getting too stressful.

A dachshund puppy takes an inquisitive snap at his fingers. Mark frowns at it. It growls at him playfully and wags its tail so hard it nearly falls over. 

“Be nice,” he says to it. It barks at him again and dashes away to go antagonize a stuffed Winnie the Pooh toy. 

“Okay, dude,” Ehlers says. He’s flat on his back and there are two chocolate lab puppies on every limb, plus a ninth trying desperately to scale his stomach to get on top of him. “This is like, pretty fucking dope.” 

Mark puts his face in a cute little brindle mutt’s belly fur while it waggles around with joy, and grins. Maybe this is going to be a good year.

-/-

Blake is wearing jorts. He’s also knitting in the common areas _again_ , a sure sign that there’s some rock formation somewhere being problematic to identify or whatever it is that stresses out geology majors, but the jorts are new.

Mark stops in the doorway to the living room, because he is going to need a second out of Blake’s sightline to handle seeing Blake’s knees. He’s kind of upset with himself for being affected like this but also, well. Blake has nice knees. Nice legs in general. Just, like… nice. 

Brandon is also there. Mark almost feels bad that it takes so long for him to notice but in his defense, jorts. 

It looks very much like Brandon passed out over his Comm 101 notes; his whole upper body is on the coffee table, all over the textbooks and notebooks and pens and everything. There’s a pink highlighter under his cheek and his eyes are closed. Mark makes the executive decision not to deal with that and instead turns to the equally strange but incredibly more buckwild fact that Blake is wearing jorts and knitting. 

“How's the knitting going?” Mark asks. Blake doesn't look up. His needles flash in a way that could be considered threatening. 

“If I wanted commentary,” he says calmly and flicks the end of the- whatever it is, “I woulda bought the director's edition, bud.” 

Which like, bro. 

“I was just asking,” Mark says, hurt. Blake finally looks up at him. His needles pause for a moment which is like- kind of scarier, honestly. The thing he’s knitting looks like it might be a pot holder, or maybe a really small square scarf. Or a blanket for mice. 

“You can sit with me,” Blake grants at last. Mark sits down. Blake’s sitting with his legs splayed out wide so a little too much thigh is on display and he’s looking kind of scruffy lately in a way that says he’s taking his grooming cues from Han Solo again and he’s… knitting. 

Mark tells his boner very firmly that it needs to go away and refocuses on the TV. It’s playing Food Network. 

“Can we change it to something else?” he ventures after a minute, because he’s getting kinda hungry and it’s not dinner time yet. 

“It’s Alton Brown or you go down, bro,” Brandon says and turns his face so his nose is tucked into the spine of his textbook. Blake shrugs. Mark settles in to yearn after some tacos.

-/-

“Please don’t hook up with Brandon,” Mark says, because he’s not really all that great at subtlety or diplomacy or like… any of that. Adam fumbles his backpack and textbooks and pens spill out all over the living room floor. Mark winces and Adam spins to face him.

He looks a little wild. 

“I,” he says. “What the _fuck_ , Mark?” 

“Please?” Mark tries, on the off-chance it works. 

“I’ve never once fucked Brandon,” Adam says. 

His tone is victorious, like he’s somehow proving something instead of telling Mark far, far too much about his sex life and preferences. 

“That is not what I said,” Mark says. “Lowsy, please. I’m begging here. Don’t do it.” 

“You don’t control me,” Adam says, even though he looks kind of like a deer making an abrupt discovery of the concept of headlights. “Don't tell me what to fuckin’ do, I’ll hook up with who I want to.” 

“What?” Brandon says from the living room door, and Mark closes his eyes and begs whatever higher power might be listening for forgiveness for whatever stupid shit he’d done to deserve this. 

There is a brief moment of silence so loaded it qualifies as weight-bearing. 

“I can hook up with whoever I want,” Adam says. His voice sounds defiant and weak in the extremely dead silence. 

Mark wonders if he can make it up the stairs before the other shoe drops. 

“Good luck finding someone who’d hook up with you,” Brandon says and Mark flinches almost as hard as Adam does. Adam’s shoulders are square a moment later like he’d never moved at all, though, his fists clenched at his sides. Mark shoots a glance at the window. He could probably fit through it. 

“Whatever,” Adam sneers. “You’d totally fuck me.”

“I would _not_ ,” Brandon says, and his voice cracks right up two octaves into a range Mark is pretty sure had been previously totally reserved for prepubescents and the mildly scary women in operas. Everyone jumps. 

There's silence for a brief, horribly beautiful second. 

“Your _voice_ -” Adam crows and then Brandon's diving for him over the battered coffee table. 

Mark decides that now is a better time than ever for a strategic retreat. As he hustles his way around the corner there's a very worrying cracking noise and then a stream of swearing that, judging from pitch, is coming from Brandon's newly discovered operatic talent.

-/-

“I’m instituting a swear jar,” Mark says and slaps the plastic change jar down in the middle of the table, right over where Larkin was doing a hideous job of sorting out the Ticket to Ride trains. It scatters the little plastic figures. Everyone stares at him.

“ _Fuck_ the fuck no,” Boeser says at last. 

“Quarter per swear,” Mark continues doggedly. 

“What fuckin’ Boeser said,” Larkin says. He’s got a party hat on. Mark isn’t sure where he’d gotten it from, since he hadn’t been wearing it when he came in, but he also kind of just doesn’t want to know. 

“Motherfucker,” Big Z puts in. He’s the only one not staring at Mark, because he has yet to look up from his phone. 

“Proceeds of the swear jar are going to a pizza party,” Mark finishes, and puts his hands on his hips. He really feels like it’s fair. 

The whole room goes very quiet. 

“Pizza party,” Boeser says slowly. He’s looking very intrigued. Big Z snorts. 

“You just buy us pizza,” he says. He still hasn’t looked up from his phone. “You swear only. No other words.” 

“I _can_ not swear,” Boeser snaps. “Fuck you!” 

“That’s a quarter,” Larkin says and Boeser lunges across the table at him. Tiny plastic trains go flying in every direction. Big Z reaches across and hauls him back by the back of his shirt until he thumps back in his seat, a delightfully soft pink and breathing heavily. 

“I can swear less than all of you,” he snarls. “I’m calling it, competition, right now. Person who’s sworn the most when we get that pizza party buys the beer for it. And _not_ the cheap shit.” 

“That’s another quarter,” Larkin says. Boeser lunges for him again. This time Big Z nearly doesn’t grab him in time and the table skids ominously, the Ticket to Ride board clattering away across the floor. When Boeser finally gets deposited back into his seat he’s bright red this time. 

“Guys,” Mark says nervously. This is evolving rapidly into something he isn’t sure he’s got the reins on. 

“Do it,” Larkin says, the streamers hanging from the tip of his party hat fluttering gaily. “You won’t.” 

Boeser paws his wallet out and yanks out a dollar bill to stuff in the jar, flashing a middle finger with a frankly uncalled for level of flourish at Larkin and then, hurtfully, at Mark. 

“Fucking bring it on, motherfuckers,” he snarls. 

“Guys, please,” Mark says weakly. 

“I want play train game,” Big Z says and finally sets his phone down with an authoritative motion. “Shut up now and play.”

-/-

“Scheifs, we haven’t hung out in ages,” Adam says and grabs him by the collar the second he steps in the door. Mark gags with the force of being yanked forward by the shirt collar and drops his backpack and has to scramble to stay upright and avoid letting Adam strangle him to death accidentally.

“We hung out yesterday,” he points out. They had, the two of them and Troubs and Connor heading to McDonalds and occupying the corner booth for two hours. It’d been great. 

“The two of us,” Adam insists. “Ages. You don’t love me anymore.” 

“I never did,” Mark says weakly, which is mostly a lie but still. “Adam, I have homework.” 

“Don’t be a fucking nerd,” Adam says and continues yanking. Mark goes with him, abandoning his backpack in front of the door, because his other option appears to be letting Adam murder him. Adam’s dragging him in the direction of either the kitchen or the basement. The kitchen, Mark decides, is more promising. Connor reigns supreme in the basement and he gets twitchy about visitors. 

“Dude,” he says hopelessly. 

“Wine and Whine hours, no excuses,” Adam says and loops an arm around Mark’s shoulders, steering him towards the kitchen. “S’been too long, we need to catch up.” 

“Please tell me you didn’t get Franzia, at least,” Mark sighs, and then relaxes when he sees that Adam definitely bought a seven dollar litre of Livingston cab-sav, but at least it’s not out of a bag and there only appears to be one of them. 

“I know how to treat you right,” Adam lies blatantly, and starts attacking the cork with the novelty penis-shaped corkscrew permanently housed on top of the fridge. 

“Mmm,” Mark says diplomatically. 

“In the spirit of our friendship and like, the deep platonic bond of brotherly love we share,” Adam proclaims and finally works the cork free with a pop and a little splash of wine onto the floor he wipes away with his sock. “I will allow you _one_ hour of talking about Wheels. And I promise I won’t even tell anyone what a sad sack of shit you are.” 

“Thanks, Lowsy,” Mark says, and actually even means it. 

“It’s love, baby,” Adam says and goes up on his tiptoes to get the fancy-ish wine glasses down from the top shelf. “So, like, go off. Tell me about Wheels.” 

Mark sighs, giving in, and takes the glass when it’s handed to him. 

“He’s just… like… exactly my type,” he says and waves vaguely, pausing to chug half the sizeable glass in one go. He’s got the feeling he’s going to want to enter drunkenness at the highest possible velocity. “You know, he’s like, perfect?” 

“El capitán does embody a certain something-something,” Adam says and drains his glass and goes to pour another. Mark watches him do it, and if he hadn’t lived through the entirety of his freshman year in a fifteen-by-fifteen dorm with him he’d be kind of worried for Adam’s health. As it is, he resigns himself to having to fine Adam later for whatever he manages to break in the house this time. “Go on.” 

“He’s tall,” Mark sighs and sips again. Adam wrinkles his nose and takes a big gulp. 

“I’m tall,” he says, which Mark feels perfectly justified in ignoring. 

“And the beard, you know,” he says and takes yet another sip. He’s already feeling warm down in the pit of his stomach and kind of flushed too. It’s kind of nice, actually. He makes a mental note to thank Adam if Adam manages not to break anything that costs more than fifty bucks before he passes out. 

“I have a beard,” Adam says and rubs what he’s really reaching in trying to describe as a full beard. Mark decides not to say anything about that. 

“It’s just really nice,” he says and finishes the glass in one swig. “Plus, blue eyes.” 

“I have blue eyes,” Adam points out, like Mark doesn’t already know that. He’s frowning earnestly. “Are you sure you don’t want on this dick, bro? Because, damn.” 

“Um,” Mark says. “Gross, dude.” 

“ _Bro_ ,” Adam says. 

Mark stares at him. Adam stares back. He seems genuinely hurt. Mark loves him unreservedly like his own brother, he really does. On the other hand, Adam is ridiculous and criminally stupid in all the ways that a degree can’t make up for. 

“Blake is a really good person,” Mark says. “And you’re awful. So, like.”

Adam makes a face and swirls the glass in his hand for a little while. A little of it splashes out onto the floor. He doesn’t seem to notice. 

“Okay, I can’t, like, argue that,” he says at last, with great and obvious reluctance. “You have me there. So Wheels is the perfect man.” 

“Yeah,” Mark says and lets his head fall back against the fridge. Standing is starting to feel like a _lot_ of work. He stares up at the ceiling and feels down into his chest a little bit. It aches, a soft and worn little rawness. He’s not like, hung up on Blake. Just a little bruised about it, when he lets himself really think about it. 

“Whoa there, bud,” Adam says and busily shoves Mark up from where he’d been sort of sliding down towards the ground without noticing. In the process Mark gets tipped over to lean face-first into Adam’s shoulder. 

It’s kind of a shame Adam is so… the way he is, Mark thinks sadly. He really is very tall, even if he can’t grow a beard. It’s really unfortunate that everything about him other than his height leaves Mark softer than a mattress at a five-star hotel. 

“I think Blake likes me,” he confesses into Adam’s shoulder. It’s kind of bony. It’s hurting the bridge of Mark’s nose a little bit, but he’s too tired and emotionally distraught right now to care much. “Like, a little bit at least. He let me sit next to him while he knitted.” 

Adam laughs at him. Mark suffers through it miserably. 

“Wheels doesn’t like anything but, like, rocks,” he says. “The boring kind of rocks even.” 

Mark makes a noise that, if Big Z were present to hear it, might have been described as a bleat of misery. 

“But I think he likes you more,” Adam says and pats his shoulder reassuringly. 

“Oh,” Mark says. He’s kind of dizzy. “That’s good.” 

“God, you’re such a fuckin’ lightweight,” Adam marvels with remarkable hypocrisy for a man who’s almost definitely only standing because Mark’s weight is keeping him pinned to the counter. “Let’s get to the couch, your Wheeler hour’s up.” 

“‘Kay,” Mark says. Maybe they can watch the Discovery channel.

-/-

Mark manages to make it to his Perinatal and Growing Family Health class, barely. His head is pounding and his mouth tastes like barf even though he doesn’t remember throwing up last night and as he sits down his stomach growls loud enough the girl sitting next to him looks at him with trepidation.

He tries to smile at her. She scoots her chair away. He puts his head down on the desk and tries to force his headache away through sheer force of will until the professor finally saunters in and starts lecturing about something to do with fetus growth or whatever the heck. 

He forces himself to take notes. It is an _effort_. 

He hates Wine and Whine. He doesn’t know how Adam keeps making him forget that. 

When he finally manages to drag his aching body back to the house almost everyone is still in classes, except for Adam, who is still passed out on the couch in a cute little puddle of drool. Someone - Mark would bet money on Brandon - has positioned a bottle of water and some aspirin on the coffee table in front of him. Someone - Mark assumes also Brandon - has drawn a penis on his cheek in sharpie. 

Mark heads to the kitchen. He’s hungry and dehydrated and miserable and something smells really good. 

Brandon is in the kitchen, patting a big white lump of… something, and staring into space. He is most likely thinking about Adam, Mark decides, and edges around him to reach the cabinet they keep their collection of generic brand painkillers in. 

“Looks like you and Adam had fun last night,” Brandon says conversationally. 

“That’s a stretch,” Mark says and shuffles to the fridge for Gatorade. They only have the yellow kind, since Roslovic was the last person to buy. If Mark were the type of person to swear, Roslovic would be hearing it. “Has Adam moved at all today?” 

“I’m not sure he’s even, like, breathing,” Brandon says. He’s grinning. Mark awards himself points because there’s no way Brandon wasn’t the one distributing the water and aspirin and penis drawings. 

“Lucky him,” he says, only a little sourly, and knocks back the aspirin and Gatorade. 

“There’s some pizza rolls in the freezer,” Brandon says idly. 

“Oh, thank god,” Mark says with feeling and goes to get a plate. 

Brandon’s rolling out what turns out to be what looks like pie crust dough when Mark finally gets the plate full of pizza rolls laid out and settled in the microwave. His stomach is turning a little and he can’t tell if he’s hungry or nauseous. Or both. Brandon's dough is a pallid off-white and smells like flour and water. 

Mark isn’t sure why Brandon’s making a whole entire pie but, y’know, whatever. 

“Whatcha making?” he asks, because he’s pretty sure the answer’s going to be incredible. 

“Pie,” Brandon says and shrugs. “Lowsy likes hangover pie.” 

Mark had been entirely correct. 

“He usually makes his own hangover pie,” he says diplomatically, because like, Adam does. Brandon just shrugs again. 

“It’s a good thing you’re not into Lowsy,” he says conversationally a beat later and Mark chokes on his next inhale and has to cough. The rolling pin Brandon’s rolling the dough out with is extremely heavy-looking. For some reason there’s a knife next to him on the counter. Mark isn’t entirely sure why, he doesn’t see anything Brandon would use it for. He’s pretty sure Brandon’s just making pie crust right now. “You’re not into Lowsy, right?” 

“I’m not into Adam,” Mark confirms and wishes he were anywhere but in the kitchen. “Am I being threatened? Are you threatening me?”

“Why would I threaten you?” Brandon asks and frowns at him. 

“Um,” Mark says. Being diplomatic is so hard. He doesn’t know how Blake manages to just swan around the house and not get tacitly threatened by mad bakers with butcher’s knives. “Well. Adam?” 

“What about him?” Brandon says and picks up the knife and starts deftly trimming the edges of the sheet of pie dough. He is… a little too good with the knife for Mark’s comfort. He swallows and decides he needs to really follow his mom’s advice for once and _assert_ himself. 

“You know, you can just tell Adam how you feel,” he says and Brandon drops the butcher’s knife and escapes skewering his foot by a hair. 

They both stare at the knife embedded point-down in the linoleum, quivering faintly with the force of its fall. 

“I have no idea what you mean,” Brandon says, still staring down at the knife, and Mark leaves the kitchen. Sometimes, he doesn’t know why he bothers.

-/-

Blake is knitting again. The jorts are not in evidence. Mark can’t decide if the grey sweatpants are any better. They might, in fact, be worse.

He’s pretty sure Blake’s not wearing underwear. 

“You can sit down,” Blake says without looking up. Mark drags his gaze away from Blake’s thighs. 

“No Food Network?” he jokes and Blake quirks a little grin down at his knitting. 

“You can put on the Discovery Channel,” he says and Mark sits down next to him. His cheeks feel a little warm and his heart is going a little fast. It’s not a big deal.

-/-

“Red alert,” Mark says from the door and is incredibly validated by how Adam spins right around in his desk chair, away from where he’s pretending to look through his Data Analytics homework like God and the whole world can’t see his other tab is Reddit. Mark doesn’t know why Adam bothers.

“Is this a Wheels emergency or like, a serious emergency?” Adam asks, both hands on the arms of his chair like he’s ready to leap to his feet. Mark appreciates him, mostly. 

“I don’t have Blake emergencies,” Mark lies. “And if I did they’d be serious, so shut up.” 

“Spicy,” Adam says and raises both eyebrows. “Enter, we’re gonna talk this shit out.” 

“You don’t have homework?” Mark goads just to get Adam back for being mean. 

“Fuck off,” Adam says and rolls his eyes. “What’s up? You look like shit.” 

“Thanks. I need something to wear to the ABC party,” Mark says dismally and throws himself onto Adam’s bed. Adam spins himself in his ratty desk chair a couple times before finally stopping so he’s facing Mark. He’s got both eyebrows raised. His eyes are a little crossed from spinning so many times. 

“What happened to last year’s stuffed animal?” he asks. Mark sighs heavily. 

“You know _exactly_ what happened to it,” he says, even more dismally. “I’m not putting that anywhere near anything intimate.” 

“Anything intimate,” Adam repeats, only a little bit mockingly. “Yeah, dude, I don’t know. I was just gonna do a trashbag toga again. We could go matchies?” 

“Brandon would kill me,” Mark says without thinking and then winces. Adam squints at him. 

“Why would Brandon care?” he asks suspiciously. Mark hastily waves that away. He has precisely zero desire to involve himself in that particular natural disaster. 

“Not important,” he says when Adam keeps squinting suspiciously. “I’m an officer now, y’know? I feel like I gotta step up and do something cool. Represent the house and everything.” 

“I don’t know, man,” Adam says, sufficiently distracted. “I feel like you’ll find something. I know Wheels is doing a notebook skirt like last year, that’s a classic.” 

“Mmm,” Mark says, and very definitely does not think about how last year had tested Mark’s will to live. 

There had been a lot of thigh on display, is all. A lot of thigh and a lot of stomach and a lot of chest. A lot of _Blake_ , honestly. Mark had ended up barfing into the bathroom sink because Roslovic had needed to pee right next to him, ignoring the lecture Ehlers had been giving them both from the wide-open door. 

Not Mark's finest hour. 

“Maybe I should just go find another stuffed animal,” Mark sighs. “I’m not good at this.” 

Adam’s quiet for a little while. Mark finally looks at him and then discovers the abruptness with which his mood can jump to abject terror, because Adam looks like he’s _scheming_. 

“We still have some Bud Lite boxes, right?” he asks slowly, and Mark is not at all reassured. “I got some ideas.”

-/-

“So for this meeting’s game I thought we could play something new,” Mark says, grin pasted on firmly.

“I want play train game,” Big Z says. He’s got his phone in hand but for once he isn’t looking at it. 

“We’ve played Ticket to Ride for like, the last three sessions,” Mark sighs. He’s got Clue in one hand and Settlers of Catan in the other and he is sick to _death_ of trains. If he has to get rolled yet again by someone who keeps starting out of Petrograd - he is not naming any names, but _Zadorov_ \- then he’s gonna lose it. “We’re playing something else.” 

“I like train game,” Big Z says sulkily. 

“Jesus, dude,” Boeser complains. 

“What is with you and fuckin’ trains,” Larkin puts in, on his phone, and Mark closes his eyes and prays for patience as Boeser erupts in a storm of crowing triumph. 

“ _That’s a quarter, motherfluffer,_ ” he finishes with and thumps back into his seat. Mark opens his eyes. Larkin sulkily deposits a quarter in the swear jar. It’s looking pretty full. 

“Train game?” Big Z asks hopefully. 

“No train game,” Mark says and sets Settlers of Catan down on the table. He’s gonna get run like the track at a high school track meet, but at least no one’s going to be shouting vaguely patriotic things in Russian at him. He takes his wins where he can.

-/-

Mark is trying to draft an email that’s just pitiful enough to tempt his Gen Ed professor into figuring out Mark’s groupmates are utter morons with, collectively, fewer electrons in their brains than a lemon. He doesn’t wanna admit he’s been doing all the work because his professor had specifically told him to _stop_ doing that, but- he… kind of had been.

So he doesn’t look up in time to avoid running into Blake as he exits the bathroom in a cloud of Old Spice scented steam until it’s almost too late. And then he looks up and his brain crashes like an overtaxed computer. 

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he says and slaps his hands over his eyes. 

It doesn’t help. Blake’s body is _seared_ onto his brain. He’s never gonna be able to think about anything else ever again. He’s gonna be remembering the shadows of the little dips on the muscles of his sides on his _deathbed_. He’s gonna get into some kind of accident someday and the nurses at the hospital are going to be questioning him about his weird heart rate because he won’t be able to stop thinking about the way the muscles bulge over Blake’s hips. 

Blake does intramural volleyball on the weekends and works out three times a week. It, like, shows. 

Mark has to be so red. He can tell. His cheeks are burning. 

“Dude,” Blake says. He sounds kind of hurt. Mark does not move his hands. “I’m not that ugly.” 

“You’re not ugly,” Mark says, and then slaps a hand over his mouth. It leaves one of his eyes uncovered but he has them shut tight, just to be sure. He might be about to pass out. He’s feeling kind of faint. “I mean, oh my god. Sorry. I’ll just-,” 

“Are you okay?” Blake asks. He hasn’t moved. He’s probably still naked, except for the towel. Mark does not open his eyes to check. He’s already tempted fate once already. 

He has a boner. 

“No,” he croaks. He’s definitely dizzy. “Yes. No? Bathroom.” 

“Oh, uh,” Blake says and there’s some shuffling footsteps. “Yeah, sorry, I’ll get out of your way. Sorry about that.” 

“No worries, man,” Mark says and charges blindly forward, which proves to be his undoing. Because he’d thought Blake had moved left, but Blake had not moved left. Blake had moved right. Directly where Mark was now trying to run for the bathroom before Blake noticed him tenting his khakis. 

He slams right into Blake. 

Blake is very warm and still wet from the shower and for the brief instant they’re pressed together Mark is very aware of the firmness of his muscles and how probably Blake could pick him up. The towel is pretty thin. Blake is taller than him. He opens his eyes because he is an idiot. 

Blake’s staring at him. He’s still naked except for the towel. 

“ _Jesus_ ,” Mark yelps and takes off for the bathroom as fast as he can.

-/-

Mark is wearing what might be most accurately characterized as a suit of armor constructed entirely from duct tape, staples, and dismantled and haphazardly arranged Bud Lite boxes. Adam had also constructed him a little paper crown out of some of his old Data Analytics graphs and colored it in with highlighter.

Adam had been a little unreasonably excited about the coloring. Mark tries not to find him endearing. 

He’s lost Adam somewhere in the crowd which is kind of concerning. He’d promised Buffs he’d do his best to be the Adam and Brandon Interference Patrol, but then Adam had handed him a solo cup fill of something a slightly worrying shade of vermillion. It had tasted like a very delicious alcoholic mistake and by the time Mark had finished it he had misplaced Adam. 

It’s kind of hard to worry. The room is spinning pleasantly and Mark keeps having to stop and lean against the wall to catch his balance. A lot of very nice people had tried to dance with him earlier. 

He keeps spotting Blake in his horrible, tantalizing notebook skirt in the distance. There is _so much_ thigh on display. Mark’s not like, necessarily dodging him. He’s outright avoiding him, in fact. 

He needs another drink, probably. 

Connor is behind the makeshift bar in the living room, which is technically a board over two chairs with a sheet over it in front of the bookshelves with their extremely varied collection of absolute garbage cleared out to make room for bottles. His beard is groomed and he grins when Mark leans up against the bar. He looks more like an adorable little mouse than ever, if adorable little mice happened to be six-foot-four. 

“Connor,” Mark says. He is wasted. “Connie. Helly. Hella-nuck. Buck.” 

Is he swearing, Mark wonders, and then decides that it’s Connor’s fault for having a swear in his name to begin with. It’s hardly Mark’s fault. 

“Don’t think I should serve you,” Connor says, but he looks amused. “Should probably cut you off.” 

“Helly,” Mark says. The bar is his very best friend. It is also the only reason he’s not swaying. “Helly, don’t do that. You love me. Don’t do that.” 

“Scheifs,” Connor says. He looks even more amused. He also isn’t making Mark a drink even though there’s a bottle of Tito’s right there in his hand. It’s the _Sufferingstravaganza_ and Mark hasn’t had a drink in ten whole entire minutes. This calls for underhand tactics. 

“I,” he says craftily. “Will tell Roslovic that Hella-Buick is a really good nickname.” 

Saying ‘nickname’ takes two tries. Connor’s eyebrows go up. 

“Oof,” some total jerk says, knocking into Mark from the back and stepping up to the bar beside him. He is taller than Mark. He also has beatific, angelic curls. Mark hates him, he decides. “That’s a threat, there.” 

Connor is not looking at Mark anymore. He’s looking at this new dude, and Mark is completely bereft and ignored. 

“Hey,” he complains. 

“Your name isn’t Hella-Buick, I’m assuming?” the new dude says. He’s grinning at Connor and has not blinked that Mark has seen. Mark hates him so much. 

“Connor,” Connor says and smiles and extends a hand and, like-

Oh. 

_Oh._

“Laurent,” the dude says and shakes Connor’s hand. Someone’s hijacked the speakers from Buffs and Missy Elliot is piping in overhead. Someone’s dancing on their coffee table and they are not wearing a shirt. Mark’s pretty sure Connor’s going to get laid tonight, and Mark isn’t, and he can’t even be mad about it because Connor’s adorable mousy nose is pinking with happiness. 

He swipes the Tito’s out of Connor’s hand and takes off. Connor doesn’t follow.

-/-

He wakes up to a hangover so bad that he almost considers just throwing up all over himself and then falling back asleep because, _Jesus_. In the end he staggers to his feet to go throw up in the bathroom, chugs a glass of water, and goes back to bed. He opens his eyes as little as possible.

It’s not as bad as last year’s Sufferingstravaganza headache, so on balance he’s probably improving his life or whatever. 

He doesn’t get up again until mid-afternoon, when his bladder starts getting unbearably insistent and his stomach is growling. 

The house is locked into a cold war when he makes it down the stairs. It’s dead silent, and still strewn with all the wreckage of the party. Someone had apparently broken the coffee table and Mark makes an exhausted mental note to go to Ikea, again. He watches Roslovic scuttle across the hall and disappear into the basement with a frightened look over his shoulder. 

Blake’s in the kitchen poking at some eggs in a pan on the stove. They smell delicious. Mark’s stomach turns over and growls at the same time. 

“Lowsy hooked up with Brandon again, didn’t he,” he says. Blake doesn’t even look up, just sighs heavily through his nose and knuckles at an eye socket. He looks about like Mark feels, e.g. hungover as all get out and like he regrets ever having been born. 

“Mmmmmyep,” he says. He's hoarse. It's hot. “Eggs?”

“Might throw them up, but sure,” Mark says and goes to put some bread in the toaster. 

They've settled into a companionable silence at the little corner of the dining table they'd swept clear of Pabst cans and pizza boxes. Mark is considering whether he can nudge his foot up against Blake's under the table and pass it off as an accident. He thinks he probably could, and then he looks up and Brandon is pausing in the doorway. 

He’s pale and there are dark circles under his eyes and his hair is limp and greasy. The shirt he’s wearing has seen better days though not recently, and he’s holding an empty Gatorade bottle in one hand like he’s not entirely sure what it or his hand is for. He stares at Mark and Blake with a certain blank incomprehension. 

“Uh, hey,” Mark tries around a bite of toast he’s frantically trying to swallow without choking on. “You good, Rusty?” 

Brandon blinks and his head bobbles for a moment and then he’s turning and gliding silently away. Mark is left wondering hysterically if maybe sometime in the night Brandon had gotten killed somehow and now their house is haunted by a really hungover ghost. 

“Oh, this is gonna be a bad one,” Blake says and rubs his face with both hands. He’s probably absolutely correct.

-/-

“So I heard about Lowry and Tanev,” Boeser says conversationally, and Mark puts his head down on the table with a mildly loud bang. Boeser jumps; Mark sees it out of the corner of his eye.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he says heavily. 

Larkin pats him on the shoulder. Mark reflects on how far he must have fallen for Larkin to be offering _him_ sympathy. Also, he kind of hates that his frat is probably going to be known as that one frat that Lowry and Tanev live in. 

“No train game today,” Big Z says sympathetically. “Play Sorry?” 

“Thanks, Z,” he mumbles into the table.

-/-

Blake finds him facedown on the couch somewhere just south of midnight but not quite one in the morning.

His Health, Wellness, and Indigenous Peoples of Canada class is like… okay, he understands why it’s important. He _cares_ , he really does. Adam has had to dig him out of more than one Netflix documentary binge because his teary-eyed sniffling has started to disturb others. He does care, like, a lot. 

But his professor sucks and the tests are hard and the textbook has small type, and Mark has a headache that won’t go away. It’s drilling in from right behind his right eye, sharp and pulsing and unbearable. 

He’s not crying but he’s close. 

“Scheifs?” Blake’s voice comes from the doorway to the living room. Mark can’t quite summon the energy to lift his head. 

He tries to say- something. He has no idea what. It comes out as a markedly pathetic groan. 

“Hey, Mark,” Blake says from much closer, and then there’s a gentle hand on Mark’s shoulder and he kind of rocks himself so his nose scrapes over the mildly horrifying couch cushion and he can look up at Blake. Blake’s looking down at him with an actual expression. It’s an expression of concern, but, like, still. 

If Mark weren’t so tired and miserable and stressed-out he’d throw a party about it. As it is, he just kind of blinks at him and then rolls his face back into the couch. 

“You okay?” Blake asks after a moment. Mark shakes his head. It squashes his nose painfully but he doesn’t care at all. 

Blake is quiet for a moment and then there are footsteps walking away. Mark listens to the sound of Blake rummaging quietly around in the kitchen, opening and closing drawers and the faucet running for a moment. His footsteps come back and Mark finally turns over onto his back because his nose does really hurt and the couch smells like something he’d have to swear to articulate and he’s kind of curious what Blake had been doing. 

Blake had made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich apparently. Also, gotten a glass of water. It looks reasonably clean, even. 

“Uh,” Mark says. He’s still got a headache. He’s not thinking very clearly. Blake shuffles around for a second, awkwardly. 

“For you,” he says and holds the plate out until Mark takes it. He clutches it with both hands and watches, vaguely stunned, as Blake piles the textbook and notebooks aside to set the water and aspirin on the coffee table in front of him. 

“Um,” he says and looks down at the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The bread’s been toasted. It looks really tasty and his stomach growls right on schedule. “Uh?” 

“Eat that,” Blake says quietly and sits down next to him. His shoulder brushes Mark’s, warm and reassuringly present. “I’ll help you with your notes when you’re done, okay?” 

Mark picks up the sandwich and takes a bite. It is, of course, delicious. The second the first bite hits his stomach it’s like the yawning void of how hungry he is decides to trumpet itself with a series of loud growls. Somehow his shoulders are unknotting already, and when he takes a tentative sip of his water it’s like an _instant_ rush of relief. 

“Thanks,” he says quietly and glances Blake’s way through his lashes. 

Blake’s looking at him and smiling, just a little bit. It looks- Mark doesn’t know. He’s tired and starving and he lets himself lean against Blake’s shoulder a little bit because, like, whatever. 

“Of course,” Blake says, and nudges his elbow so he takes another bite.

-/-

“Mark,” Boeser hisses. Mark blinks at him. He’s looking slightly pinker than his usual moderate perpetual blush, and he’s gesturing furtively. Mark glances at where Larkin is showing a completely disinterested Big Z what’s most likely some kind of baseball meme on his phone and scoots his chair over.

“What?” he asks. Boeser points at his Scrabble stand. 

Arranged carefully on it is an F, a U, a C, and a K. Mark blinks at it, and then blinks at Boeser. He would almost think this was a joke or some kind of prank, but Boeser looks like he’s about to start stress-sweating or maybe cry. 

“... What about it?” Mark asks. 

“If I play… that word,” Boeser says, with torturous care. “Will I get charged for the swear jar?” 

“Why are you asking me?” Mark asks, mystified. Boeser looks at him like he’s stupid. 

“You’re the president,” he says. 

“Oh,” Mark says. He doesn’t want to like, admit he forgot, but. He’d kind of forgotten. “Oh, well. If you can play it without saying it, I guess. I dunno, dude.” 

“Larkin can’t win,” Boeser says. “You gotta be _sure_.” 

“Jeez, alright,” Mark says and starts scooting his chair back. The way Boeser is looking kind of hysterical is a little off-putting and anyway he has QUICKLY loaded up on his own Scrabble stand to fire right into a double word space with a side of triple letter and the look on Big Z’s face is going to be _so sweet_. “Just don’t say it and you’re good.” 

“Thank you,” Boeser says, turning an expression of gratitude on him that is frankly way too sincere and intense. Larkin finally looks over at them, realizing that there are more people in the room than a Big Z who’s blatantly ignoring him. 

“Hey,” he says and points threateningly. “No plotting!”

-/-

“Hey, dude,” Adam says vaguely. Mark doesn’t even realize he’s being talked to for a few seconds, on account of he’s _so_ incredibly late for his volunteer shift and there’s a family coming to pick up one of the last of the chocolate lab puppies, and if Mark doesn’t get to say goodbye he’s going to lose it.

He’s got a stressful group project in his Gen Ed class that he’s maybe projecting about. 

“Adam,” he says and lifts a hand above the coffee table he’s currently groping around under because he’s pretty sure he kicked a shoe under there at some point, maybe. “Yeah, yo, what’s up?” 

“You busy?” 

Mark has like, negative five minutes to get out the door. He’s already late. 

“I have to get to the shelter like, now,” he says. “Have you seen my shoes? What did Troubs _do_ with them.” 

“Bruh, they’re in your room,” Adam says. He’s laughing at Mark, but Mark is already halfway up the stairs so who cares. He finds his shoes and nearly falls headlong back to the ground floor on the way down, but he doesn’t break any bones and he’s still only five minutes behind schedule. 

“Didja need something?” he asks, distracted by how hard it is to keep his balance when he’s hopping in place trying to yank a shoe on with one hand and get his wallet into his pocket with the other. 

“Nah,” Adam says and starts meandering for the stairs. “Good luck with the traffic though, dude.”

-/-

Board Game Club has, as Dead Week starts to loom, started to seem more and more like a sanctuary instead of where Mark goes to punish himself for wanting friends he doesn’t live with.

Roslovic is quoting strings of numbers to no one in particular that Mark’s going to assume are important historical dates, since Roslovic is a history major, but at a pace that seems unlikely to help him remember anything. Troubs is wandering around with paint all over his face and Mark isn’t sure if it’s a performance piece for his theater class or he just hasn’t showered in a week. No one’s seen Connor in days. He needs a break, is what he’s saying. 

Unfortunately for him, Larkin has decided to try to expand their membership by tapping his extensive network of moderate to severely dubious friends. 

Mark has to accept any new members who apply that meet all previously established club bylaws. The dude Larkin has brought in, Mark believes, operates outside these rules without directly contravening them. Something about him suggests a vague aura of already having picked a bar fight despite there being no bar in the vicinity, much less a fight. Larkin has an ancient, slightly foxed edition of the game Operation under his arm, which Mark hates. 

It’s not a good day. 

“Yo,” Larkin’s friend says. “S’play some games.”

-/-

Operation is the worst board game of all time. It is an exercise in sadism, masochism, self-loathing, and really boring and terrible puns. The noise gives Mark a headache and there’s a certain pedantic, obnoxious part of him that just _really_ hates how medically inaccurate it is. No game makes him want to swear more. Not even Risk when Boeser’s holed up in Australia.

“What is,” Big Z asks, again. ”Bread basket? Americans keep bread in penis?” 

Mark closes his eyes and prays when he opens them that this whole situation will have gone away. When he opens them again, Operation is still on the table and Big Z is still poking dubiously at where the penis would be if Operation weren’t a family-friendly board game. 

“It’s the belly,” Mark says hopelessly. “It’s um, supposed to be a joke or something.” 

“Americans are not funny,” Big Z decides. Privately, Mark agrees. 

The board buzzes at them. Boeser drops the tweezer-things in frustration. He doesn’t look like he’s having any fun. Neither does Big Z, and Mark knows _he’s_ not enjoying any of this. Larkin’s friend is looking at his phone and basically since he’d walked in the door hasn’t stopped texting someone entered into his phone as, Mark had discovered when he’d sneaked a slightly nosy glance, ‘double A battery’. 

Mark doesn’t want to know. He also doesn’t want to be playing this game. 

“We should play something else after this,” he says. He doesn’t want to pull rank as club president - he’s not entirely sure Big Z would let him, anyway, situations like this one aside - but desperate times and everything. He’d even accept another disastrous attempt at trying to teach Larkin chess. 

The board buzzes again. Big Z sets the tweezers down with a care that heavily implies that he would much rather throw them across the room. 

“Hey,” Larkin’s slightly unsettling friend drawls. Larkin has called him Bert, Tuzzi, and Tyler alternately all throughout the night with no attempt whatsoever to clarify what the rest of them are supposed to call him or even which is, in fact, his real name. 

“Maybe Sorry? Or Clue?” Mark asks hopefully. Larkin makes a mutinous face. 

“Hey, guys,” potentially Tyler says again. 

“What?” Mark says, and he’s trying _so_ hard not to snap at him. 

“Well, I ain’t a doctor,” Larkin’s friend says. “But I think the board’s fuckin’ broke, dawg.” 

Mark watches Boeser consider telling Tuzzi or maybe Bert that he owes the swear jar a quarter and then reconsider judiciously. Silently he agrees. Bert or possibly Tuzzi seems like a perfectly nice guy but he just has… a vibe. 

“It’s Operation,” he says distractedly. “It does that.” 

“I don’t know, man. I don’t think it’s supposed to do that,” probably Tyler says, and points at the Operation board. Mark follows his finger. 

There is a small spit of flame leaping up from the SPARE RIBS hole. 

“ _Jesus motherfluffing Christ_ ,” Boeser shrieks and leaps to his feet and throws his jacket over the fire in one motion. Big Z is there a moment later with his water bottle, dumping it all over the slightly smoky pile of fabric. Larkin does absolutely nothing helpful except yell wordlessly and knock over two chairs in leaping to his feet. 

“The board just caught fire,” Larkin says after a second, sounding faintly stunned. Boeser thumps down in his chair and stares at his ruined jacket and doesn’t retaliate or even respond at all. 

“Oh, god,” Mark says faintly. 

“Fire alarm not go off,” Big Z says. Mark can’t quite tell if he’s trying to be reassuring or pointing out once again how the faculty all hate them and hope the lack of proper fire safety kills them all. 

“Y’know, I take back everything I said,” the dude who could be Bert, Tuzzi, or Tyler says thoughtfully. “Y’all are pretty lit, actually.” 

Larkin does everyone a favor and punches him in the arm.

-/-

Mario Kart night happens even though Brandon and Adam still aren’t speaking to each other. It would be awkward, but Mark’s biggest discovery of college so far is that enough Franzia and Fireball can paper over _anything_.

It’s still awkward. But like, at least everyone else is loud enough that it’s harder to tell Adam’s usual obnoxious chirping is notably absent. 

Mark is, once again, stupid drunk. He is also, once again, pressed bodily up against Blake. It’s a delightful kind of torture and he’s finding it remarkably difficult to feel bad for Adam and Brandon. Especially because Brandon keeps sighing under his breath, sad little puffs of air that are driving Mark right up the wall. 

He just wants to enjoy being pathetic, and Brandon keeps looking at Adam with, like… Mark thinks the word _softness_ and resists gagging. It is soft, though. Soft and kind of sad. 

Adam laughs at something Troubs is doing onscreen, head thrown back, and Brandon looks down at his lap. Mark is honestly so sick of them. If Brandon were to pine any harder he’d be a Christmas tree, and Mark has no idea how he can’t tell Adam is just as bad. 

Right on schedule Adam throws a glance Brandon’s way. Brandon’s head is down so he totally misses the way Adam’s face falls when he sees Brandon isn’t looking. It’s so incredibly obvious a blind man in a dark room could see it. _Mark_ certainly can. 

He is going to scream. He really is. 

“They’re the worst,” Blake murmurs to him. His breath is just touching the shell of Mark’s ear, which is both unbearably intimate and kind of the most frustrating thing of all. He’s so annoyed with Adam and Brandon he can’t even get vaguely turned on about Blake breathing on him. 

“The _worst_ ,” he agrees and massages his temples. Normally he’d be blushing and useless and probably getting teased by everyone for being a total space case, but now he just has an impending headache and a vague sense of dissatisfied annoyance. He can’t even enjoy how Blake’s thigh is pressed up against his and the warm line of his side touching his entire arm. It’s really upsetting, actually. 

And, like, he’s not stupid. He’s aware that he has to be just as bad as Adam and Brandon. At least he’s being quiet about it. 

“Are they talking again yet?” Blake asks. Mark scowls into thin air. 

“No,” he says. “I need to talk to Adam or something, I guess. He’s twenty-frickin’-two.” 

Blake laughs. It tickles the little hairs at the back of Mark’s neck. Mark changes his mind about being vaguely turned on. It’s, like… kind of a lot. 

“They’re being children,” Blake says. He really is very warm. Mark can also feel all the wholesome volleyball muscles of his chest against Mark’s shoulder. He considers whether it would be more blatantly obvious to try to go for a cushion to position over his lap or just pray no one looks too closely at his pants situation. His cheeks are starting to feel warm. “I’ll talk to Brandon too.” 

“Fuckin’ _blue shells_ ,” Roslovic shouts, and then the whole couch rocks as Troubs dives at him, and Mark takes the chance to grab a pillow. Better safe than sorry.

-/-

“You’re slacking on your community outreach goal,” Mark informs Adam.

Adam squints at him. 

“Alright, mom,” he says, sounding tired. “Whatever, I’ll go do some more fuckin’ soup kitchen hours tomorrow. I have homework tonight.” 

Mark puts on as convincing of a grin as he thinks he can get away with. Adam’s actually pretty much right on schedule for his community service hours and Mark would feel bad about lying but, like, desperate times. One of the downsides of responsibility, he’s discovered, is having to be responsible for things. 

“I thought maybe you’d wanna come to the shelter with me,” he offers. He’s at least ninety percent sure he doesn’t sound like he’s scheming. “Y’know, puppies.” 

“You drive a hard bargain,” Adam says after a moment. “But I’ll come for the puppies.” 

Which is pretty much better than Mark expected it to go, in the end.

-/-

“So, we should talk,” Mark says as soon as Adam’s gotten his shoes off and sat down on the floor and there’s basically no easy way to escape.

“You fooled me with puppies,” Adam realizes. There’s a golden retriever puppy falling asleep in his lap, tiny little head on his knee, and a little pitbull baby tugging determinedly on his hoodie sleeve. He looks deeply betrayed. Mark refuses to feel bad. “You’re a _monster_.” 

“This is a necessary intervention,” Mark says. There’s a dachshund puppy sniffing inquisitively at his fingers and he’s having to devote at least half his attention to it, because he’s pretty sure he remembers this one from last time and it nips. 

“We’re not friends anymore,” Adam says, but he’s making absolutely no effort to disengage himself from the puppies and he doesn’t look very mad. 

He looks… kind of tired. There are dark circles under his eyes and his hair is kind of limp and his stubble has graduated from ‘probably thinks this is the effortlessly messy look’ to ‘depression’. 

Midterms were a week and a half ago. Adam shouldn’t still look this rough. Increasingly, Mark thinks with a wince, it’s looking like Adam’s not doing so very well. 

“I want to help,” he says and yanks his hand back just as the dachshund takes a playful little snap at it. There’s a cocker spaniel sniffing at his knee he would much rather hang out with. It looks less bloodthirsty. “With, you know, everything.” 

“And I’ve been annoying,” Adam fills in. Mark sucks air through his teeth with a hiss. 

“Like,” he says delicately. “I did not say that.” 

Adam rolls his eyes. 

“I am, like, moderately self-aware,” he says. “Let’s hear it, then.” 

Mark is not a fan of the look on his face. It’s sour and completely unlike him and Mark doesn’t like it at all. He nudges the cocker spaniel over to Adam and scoots over until their shoulders are pressed together. Adam quirks a little bit of a smile and it’s not the happiest smile Mark’s ever seen on his face but it’s better than nothing. 

“So,” he says. “Brandon.” 

Adam heaves a sigh so loud it startles the golden retriever in his lap a little. Adam pets it until it settles back down. 

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Brandon.” 

“So…” Mark tries, and trails off, because he’s just not that good at this. He really, really isn’t. He’s a nursing student, not a psychology major or, like, a philosophy major. He can’t even look Blake in the eye without all the blood in his body rushing to his cheeks or, y’know. 

“I think I’m like, probably in love with him,” Adam says casually. 

It’s Mark’s turn to startle the puppies, by choking on absolutely nothing. The dachshund rolling a ball around a few feet away yips at him. 

“Oh,” Mark says. His voice is a little hoarse. Adam snorts at him. 

“So, yeah, oh,” he mocks. It comes out more bitter than anything. 

Quiet falls between them. There’s a puppy taking a dump on the floor a few feet away. Mark watches it happen with a certain philosophical misery. It is possible, though Mark is still just a nursing student and not Zadorov and therefore not a literature major, that this whole situation is highly metaphorical. 

He feels like garbage. 

“I’m sorry,” he says and Adam stares at him. “I’ve been kind of a terrible friend, I should have been paying more attention.” 

Adam blinks. 

“Well,” he says after a second. He sounds kind of blank, but blank with surprise instead of like, anger or anything. “I mean, you were busy. With Wheels and whatever.” 

Mark nudges him with his shoulder. 

“Shut up about Blake,” he says fondly. “I was being terrible.” 

“You are pretty shitty,” Adam says and nudges him back and he’s starting to smile. A real one, kind of crooked and a little bit pallid but real. “Like, I’m not gonna say you weren’t. You probably owe me a whole eighteen-rack. Molson.” 

“I don’t know about that,” Mark says, mock-thoughtful. “Not sure I feel eighteen-rack bad. Maybe a sixer or two.” 

“I’ll take it,” Adam says placidly. They’re not quite cuddling, but they are leaning against each other and there are puppies involved and it’s not _not_ cuddling either. 

“So, Brandon,” Mark says and lets the pitbull puppy that’s made a wet mess of Adam’s sleeve move on to trying to climb into his lap. “So, you…” 

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Adam sighs. “It’s probably whatever. I know I gotta cut it out with the hooking up with him but I don’t… want to.” 

“Have you ever talked to him about it?” Mark says and gently extracts the leg of his sweatpants from the pitbull’s mouth. 

“One time, freshman year,” Adam says and shrugs. Somehow he’s acquired two more golden retriever puppies. They’re a sleepy pile in his lap. Mark remembers that he does have his phone and starts trying to sneak his hand into his pants pocket without tempting the pitbull into going after that instead. 

“And?” Mark prompts and sneakily snaps a pic of Adam and his lap full of puppies. It’s not the best angle in the world but he manages to get Adam’s fond smile in it. He closes his phone without sending it to anyone. Secret weapon for when Brandon needs to be distracted. 

“He said he didn’t want anything serious,” Adam says and shrugs again, dislodging a curious rottweiler. “Or not-serious. So, basically, he didn’t want anything.” 

“Well that’s stupid,” Mark says without thinking. 

“Hey,” Adam says mildly and frowns. “What the fuck, Scheifs?” 

“I mean,” Mark backpedals, because he may be kind of sticking his oar in but he’s not going to be the one that outs the fact that Brandon’s got a crush on Adam about as subtle as a tractor on the freeway. There are limits, even to his love for Adam. “You’re a catch, dude. Like, certified. He’d be lucky to have you.” 

“Whatever,” Adam says but he’s smiling again, looking entirely pleased and even a little smug. Which, punchable, but better than miserable and bitter. He looks less like a PSA about the warning signs of depression in loved ones by the minute. 

“Seriously,” Mark says and bumps shoulders with Adam. “You’re great! Like… like, certified stallion.” 

“Hey, I love you too, dude,” Adam says. “But like, you can stop now. Can we just call it all good and get some Taco Bell on the way home? I feel better but I’m starved.”

-/-

“Did you know Adam is in love with Brandon?” Mark asks. Blake sighs and bounces the volleyball in his hands against the ground twice. He’s attractively disheveled and kind of sweaty, and Mark probably should have waited until after Blake showered from the game to talk to him. On the other hand, getting to look at Blake is a nice reward for having to talk even more about Adam and Brandon.

“Did you not?” Blake asks. He’s still spinning the volleyball in his hands. 

“Well,” Mark hedges. “I mean, I kinda knew. It’s pretty obvious. But like, _he_ knows.” 

“Does he know Brandon’s, like…” Blake makes the face and tosses the volleyball into the air. Mark isn’t _not_ watching his pecs move. He’s just… looking. “You know. Like that, about him too?”

“He thinks Brandon doesn’t want a relationship,” Mark says. It’s pretty impressive of him, he thinks, to be able to string together so many words. 

“We live in a Sandra Bullock movie,” Blake sighs and shoves his sweaty hair back from his forehead. “This is like… unbearable. I’m gonna go shower.” 

“Kay,” Mark says feebly and resolves to stay out in the nice afternoon sunshine until he’s very sure Blake’s finished his shower and safely dressed and he’s not going to ambush himself with Blake’s chest on accident.

-/-

“We’re gonna have to discuss this,” Mark says, because he’s really never been good at subtlety with anyone more observant than Adam and he’s also just tired of this. And also, this is at least half Brandon’s fault anyway and Mark’s not feeling charitable.

To Brandon’s credit he instantly goes so stiff with tension he looks a little like a wax figure but he doesn’t immediately take off running. He also doesn’t pretend not to know what Mark’s talking about. 

“Okay,” he says. Mark can hear his jaw grinding. “Like, not in the kitchen.” 

“Backyard?” Mark suggests and then follows Brandon closely because he’s pretty sure Brandon’s not going to take off running but not _entirely_ sure. He’s glad to leave the kitchen, anyway. Last he’d looked there aren’t any kitchen knives on the back porch. 

The backyard is a little overgrown and there’s a slightly wilted inflatable kiddie pool in the far corner that Mark doesn’t remember how it had gotten there. Someone’s left a mug on the railing and there’s a mushroom growing out of it. Mark looks at it instead of at Brandon. There are no knives. 

“I know I gotta make up with him,” Brandon says, breaking the silence. He sounds tired. “I will. You don’t need to worry about it.” 

Mark digests that for a second. The mushroom quivers gently in the light autumn breeze. 

“Maybe I’m checking up on you,” he says at last. “Like, I care. I’m worried about you too, dude.” 

“That’s fuckin’ weird,” Brandon says immediately but when Mark glances over his shoulders have come down from around his ears a little bit and he looks slightly less like a cartoon of himself. “Whatcha do that for?” 

“Oh my god,” Mark says and rolls his eyes and elbows Brandon gingerly because he’s feeling brave but like, only because there are no visible knives. “Whatever. I wanna be sure you’re okay.” 

“Cute,” Brandon says but he’s got a thin little smile tucked into the corner of his mouth that’s almost sincere. “I’m fine. It’s whatever, y’know.” 

“No offense,” Mark lies, because actually full offense. “But it doesn’t feel like ‘whatever’.” 

“Well, it is,” Brandon says, also lying. “So.” 

Mark tucks his hands in his pockets. This is all so extremely outside of the vice-presidential duties outlined in the Omega Phi Gamma handbook. Mark knows; he’d checked. The vice president of Omega Phi Gamma doesn’t actually have a strictly designed role, as such. Mostly he’s supposed to just- do everything, kind of. Mark thinks this is really going above and beyond. However, he knows a responsibility when he sees one and he’s gonna see this through. Because he’s a _good friend_. 

Brandon breaks eventually, with a sigh and a shrug that is perhaps unreasonably violent. 

“Fuckin’ whatever,” he says. “It’s not like it matters anyway. We’re gonna make up and it’ll be all chill.” 

“It keeps happening,” Mark says baldly. He’s tired; it’s getting kinda cold as the sun sets. He wants to go have a glass of water and maybe a sandwich. There are group projects due in a week or two, and finals right after that. “You aren’t chill. Just talk about it.” 

“Wow,” Brandon says and snorts and knuckles at his eyes. “Okay then, so I hook up with Adam sometimes. Then shit gets weird because I can’t handle myself. It’s still not a big deal. I’m getting over it.” 

“This’s been happening for, like,” Mark thinks about it, “going on three years, dude. That’s a long time to be getting over it.” 

“I got infatuated,” Brandon says sourly. He looks kind of like the words have been dug out of him with something pointy and perhaps also coated in tetanus. “Or whatever.” 

“You got _infatuated?_ ” Mark asks incredulously and narrowly avoids continuing on to ask where Brandon had learned the word ‘infatuated’ from. Brandon isn’t stupid; he just really, really acts like it. And Mark has no idea _what_ Brandon’s talking about. 

Brandon sighs. 

“You know I’m, y’know, a scholarship kid,” he says slowly, unwillingly. Mark nods and Brandon shoves his hands into his pockets. “So it was just a lot, freshman year. With keeping my scholarship and joining a frat. I didn’t wanna have a boyfriend for the very first fucking time on top of all that. And Adam didn’t want a relationship with me anyway.” 

Mark opens and then closes his mouth. He doesn’t know how to answer. This is, in fact, a lot to digest. 

“Doesn’t,” Brandon amends after a moment. His voice is very thin. “He doesn’t want that.” 

“But you, um,” Mark says delicately, because he’s decided that he really can’t address what Brandon has just said directly without losing his whole entire mind. He hates this extremely. He should never have accepted the Omega Phi Gamma vice presidency, or made friends with Adam. Or maybe gone to college at all. “You want to, um, y’know.” 

“Yeah, I wanna fuckin’ date him,” Brandon says, taking pity. He’s scowling. “He’s great. He’s hot and he’s an asshole and he’s funny or whatever the fuck. Don’t you dare tell him I said that.”

“I wouldn’t,” Mark promises with a shudder. God forbid. 

“Good,” Brandon says. He looks so uncomfortable Mark wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled an Exorcist and start crawling around on the ceiling or something. Mark can relate. He’s feeling a little ceiling-crawl-y himself. “Can we _please_ never talk about this again?” 

“God,” Mark says with feeling. “Yes.”

-/-

“Nothing you’re doing is working,” Buffs says. Mark wishes he weren’t already laying on the floor, so he could lay down on the floor. Adam and Brandon still aren’t talking and somehow both of them seem even more deflated than they had before. Which, maybe a little better than stalking around like they’re one incorrect coffee order away from a homicidal breakdown, but infinitely sadder to watch.

“I _know_ ,” he whines miserably. He’s staring up at the NSYNC poster Buffs has tacked to his ceiling. He’s not sure if it’s ironic or not, and he’s a little too scared of Buffs to ask. “What am I supposed to do?” 

Buffs spins back and forth idly, toeing at the carpet next to Mark’s head. 

“Intervention,” he says at last. 

“Intervention?” Mark asks. Buffs shrugs. 

“Works in the soaps,” he says.

-/-

Blake refuses to be part of the intervention on the grounds that he has a volleyball game. Mark lets him, because he’s a little overcome when he thinks of Blake playing volleyball. Whatever. If Buffs was serious about the intervention he’d organize it himself.

He shifts guiltily. He doesn’t really mean that; some secret part of him that’s still in the third grade is absolutely thrilled to have that much responsibility. 

So he gets everyone in the house willing to come, which is most of them because they’re all incredibly nosy, and then he texts Adam and Brandon that there’s pizza in the living room up for grabs. 

“Again with the tricking me thing,” Adam says when he shows up in the living room and Brandon’s already there waiting for them. Also, an entire crowd of his frat brothers. “I really need to learn not to trust you.” 

“You’re hurting my feelings,” Mark informs him, because the Wikihow article he’d read on staging interventions hadn’t covered Adam being mean. 

“I’m finding it hard to give a shit,” Adam says. His eyes are fixed on Brandon. Brandon is staring back. The tension is already very thick. The living room is also a little crowded, since there are seven fairly large young adult men standing in it. 

“We’re here to stage an intervention,” Mark says, straining to remember the script. The Wikihow article had been extremely firm on needing a script. Also, on every member of the intervention having a turn speaking, but Connor had outright refused to submit anything for the script so Mark’s kind of worried they’re going to end up departing from accepted methodology anyway. 

“Jesus motherfucking Christ,” Brandon says. 

“We don’t need an intervention,” Adam complains. “We’re just fine.” 

“Yeah,” Brandon bites out, in a way that implies the exact opposite, “we’re fine. Peachy, even.” 

“Totally good,” Adam agrees. He’s staring at Brandon like if he blinks something terrible might happen. 

“Alright,” Buffs says, interrupting an exchange that threatens to go on in perpetuity, and claps his hands together. “So, we’re gonna quit bullshitting around. You two need to kiss and make up or whatever the fuck, because I’m sick of it.” 

“Buffs, that wasn’t in the script,” Mark says despairingly. 

“Your script is too long,” Buffs says and shrugs. “I got bored.” 

Adam shoves his hands in his pockets. It makes Brandon flinch a little. They’re still staring at each other and neither of them look angry. Upset maybe, so tense it looks like a breeze would snap them right in half, but neither of them are angry. They just look miserable, and tired. 

“I’m sorry,” Adam says at last, and if he doesn’t sound totally sincere then Mark is at least happy that someone decided to talk at all. They’ve already gone so far off his script he’s not sure how he’s going to get them back on it. Troubs was supposed to talk about the importance of fraternal love, but he’s not saying anything and kind of trying to hide behind Roslovic. “For, you know… hooking up with you. Or whatever it is you’re mad about.” 

“Guys,” Mark tries, because the remaining and vanishingly small chance that they can get back to the script is draining away at speed. He’s summarily ignored. 

“ _That’s_ what you’re sorry for,” Brandon says, sounding incredulous. “And not for avoiding me for like, three fucking weeks?” 

“I was dealing with shit!” Adam protests. 

“Dealing with shit,” Brandon scoffs. “We were gonna make Dead Week pie together. You skipped out on fucking _Dead Week pie_.” 

“Listen, asshole,” Adam says bitterly. “I’m dealing with my shit, okay? It wasn’t _me_ that didn’t want a relationship, so pardon the fuck out of me if I need a little bit.”

He’s got his shoulders up around his ears and he won’t look at any of them and Mark feels- God, he feels awful, actually. He feels uncomfortable and awful and like, Christ, they’re a frat. This is beyond all of them. 

They don’t even have a single psychology major in the whole house. Troubs aside, who might have picked up a psych minor at some point since as far as Mark can tell he treats declaring minors kind of like collecting trading cards, no one has any training in counseling at all. They are so very, very underqualified. 

“Well,” Brandon says into the extremely uncomfortable quiet. “It’s not like you tried to talk me into it.” 

“What the fuck,” Adam snaps. “You think I’m gonna try to talk someone into dating me when they don’t wanna? That’s what you think of me?” 

“That would be pretty fucked up,” Troubs says. Everyone looks at him. He snaps his mouth shut, going a little pale. 

No one says anything for a little while. 

It’s like no one can meet anyone else’s eyes and the silence is so incredibly bad. Mark’s not even sure most of them are breathing; he knows he’s trying to do it as shallowly as possible, trying to avoid catching anyone’s attention. Roslovic is trying to edge out of the room. Connor’s somehow already disappeared. Even Buffs looks like he’d like to invent the ability to teleport to get out of this situation. 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Brandon says at last. “I just meant…” 

“If I thought you wanted,” Adam begins, and then Buffs is on his feet with Troubs under one arm, dragging Roslovic behind him by the shoulder of his shirt. Neither of them are protesting being manhandled. They look kind of thankful to be escaping. 

“We’re out of this one,” Buffs throws over his shoulder. “Scheifs, deal with this.” 

“Wait-,” Mark says desperately, and then Buffs is gone and the only ones left in the room are Adam, Brandon, Mark, and his deep and fervid regret that he’d ever let Buffs talk him into this in the first place. Adam and Brandon are staring at each other. They don’t appear to have noticed Buffs’ rapid departure at all. 

“I wasn’t, y’know,” Brandon says. His fists are clenched at his sides and his shoulders are squared. All the anger is gone from his face and Mark is a little horrified to realize that he actually looks… kind of scared. “I wasn’t ready. Back then.” 

“Are you now?” Adam asks softly. 

Mark is nauseous. 

“I,” Brandon says softly. “Yeah. I think maybe, yeah.” 

Buffs is not the boss of him, Mark decides. Buffs is not the president of Omega Phi Gamma, and therefore can’t tell him what to do and _really_ can’t make him stick around and listen to any of this. Like, he loves both of them, but _Christ_. 

He takes off. Neither Adam nor Brandon appear to notice him leaving.

-/-

“I take it the intervention went well,” Blake says dryly. Mark groans and drops his head into his hands.

“They won’t stop holding hands now,” he says despairingly. He only kind of means it; they’re cute in, like, a really disgusting way. Mostly he’s kind of jealous. 

Blake claps him on the shoulder. 

“Could be worse!” he says reasonably.

-/-

“So I heard about Lowry and Tanev,” Boeser says.

“What a fantastic time to announce that you lost the pizza party competition,” Mark says, and Boeser upends the table. Checkers go flying.

-/-

Dead Week dawns and with it the house goes quiet. Mark’s actually not too badly off this year - with his projects out of the way all he has are reports on his practicum hours and two finals. He’s feeling pretty okay. He gets up from his study guide and awards himself a nice relaxing shower.

So he might have some nice scented shower gel. Whatever. He has a sister, he knows how to do ‘self-care’ or whatever. He’s allowed to indulge. He spends a little longer than anyone needs to know about poking at his face in the mirror, too. He’s thinking about trying to grow a beard. He’s probably got the face for it. 

Because of course he does, he walks right into Blake the instant he opens the bathroom door. 

Blake’s got a ball of yarn in one hand and a stack of textbooks in the other. He drops both, one with a very loud bang and then other with not much of a sound at all. Mark looks down at the yarn, unspooling slowly as it rolls away, and then back up at Blake. Blake is staring at him. 

“Hi,” Mark says, because he’s about as relaxed as he probably ever will be around Blake regardless of the fact that he’s topless. 

And bottomless. And like, clothes-less in general. 

There goes his relaxation. Mark cinches the towel tighter and then realizes with doomed resignation that he’s probably going to end up with a boner and it’ll show even more that way, and loosens it again a little. And then he tightens it again, because it’s starting to slip down his hips. 

Blake doesn’t say anything. He’s blinking rapidly. 

“Blake,” Mark prompts. He wants to take off running a little bit but Blake is standing directly in his way, blocking Mark’s escape route. 

“Oh,” Blake says. “Oh, uh.” 

Mark wonders absently if someday he’ll finally develop the superpower to open up holes under himself so that he can fall into them and escape situations like this. He keeps ending up in them. He considers shifting the towel higher. To cover what, he isn’t sure, but- something. He feels horribly exposed and Blake is still just staring at him and basically, he hates being alive. 

“Hi,” he says. His voice comes out kinda rough. 

Blake twitches. 

He is, Mark realizes slowly, going kind of… pink. 

“Uh,” he says. His gaze is mostly on Mark’s face but it keeps darting down and then back up in quick, guilty flickers. His face just keeps getting hotter under his unfairly attractive stubble and it is actually looking very much like he’s blushing. “Hey. Hi.” 

“You’re blushing,” Mark says, perhaps stupidly. 

Blake says nothing. 

“You _are_ blushing,” Mark realizes. “Oh my god. You’re blushing.” 

“Shut up,” Blake says. He’s red now, and looking determinedly up at the ceiling. “I am not.” 

“You are,” Mark says. He’s grinning. He can feel it stretching his mouth wide. 

He’s not an idiot. He’s not Adam and he’s not Brandon, and he’s not gonna get invited to join MENSA anytime soon either but he really isn’t stupid. He’s not imagining how Blake’s gaze darts down to fix on his hips for a second and then away again. 

“Okay,” he says carefully. “Okay, I’m gonna do something and if I’m wrong then you can’t punch me.” 

“What the hell,” Blake says, still looking up at the ceiling and therefore missing Mark stepping forward into his space. “I would never-” 

If there’s anything important he was about to say it’s lost, as Mark gets a hand in Blake’s extremely mediocre ten-dollar haircut and drags him down to kiss him. 

It’s awkward and he’s got to keep a hand on his towel to keep it on. Their mouths aren’t matching up right and Blake’s hands are hanging loose and stunned at his side and his mouth is slack and soft and unresponsive. He tastes like pizza sauce. 

Mark goes to let go, a pang of doubt creeping in, and then Blake is coming alive under his hands, jolting forward so hard he nearly takes out Mark’s nose. Abruptly he’s kissing back, sharp and firm and so perfectly himself. A hand finds its way to the back of Mark’s neck, holding him in place. 

Mark’s panting when Blake finally lets him go. 

“Holy shit,” he says and then feels himself go absolutely scarlet from his forehead all the way to what feels like his toes. 

“You just _swore_ ,” Blake says blankly. His mouth looks a little wet and swollen. He also looks very stunned. 

“I,” Mark says. “Oops?” 

“You just kissed me?” Blake says. He doesn’t sound like he’s registering Mark had spoken at all. He’s kind of just staring blankly at Mark. “You just kissed me, and then you swore. Holy shit, Mark.” 

“You swore too,” Mark says weakly. 

“Yeah, I _do that_ ,” Blake says and then blinks and finally seems to focus on Mark’s actual face instead of- whatever he’d been looking at. “Mark, did you- You kissed me.” 

“We’ve, like, established that,” Mark says. “Thoroughly.” 

“Did you want to?” Blake asks. Mark stares at him. He’s crimson and shifting around awkwardly and still can’t stop looking at Mark’s body and then away. He’s, like, stupid. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” Mark says at last. “I kissed you. Did _you_ want to?” 

“Well, obviously,” Blake says distractedly. Mark absently wonders what would happen if he dropped the towel. This is an incredibly new and heady kind of power. 

“Obviously,” he repeats. He’s really, really enjoying this. 

“I have for, y’know, a while,” Blake says and then winces. 

Mark narrows his eyes. 

“How long,” he asks, “is a while?” 

“Um, a year. Or two,” Blake says, looking pained. It’s an extremely attractive face but not the best expression Mark’s ever seen on it. It’s still hot, though. “I didn’t want to, you know, leverage my authority. That wouldn’t be right.” 

“You're the president of the Winnipeg chapter of Omega Phi Gamma,” Mark says blankly. “Not, like, the United States of America.”

“Well,” Blake says awkwardly. With delight Mark realizes that his blush is, in fact, getting even darker. “Yes, I know that.”

“Leveraging your authority,” Mark marvels. “You're a _dork_.”

Blake frowns. “That's not very nice,” he says. 

“You were just going to not kiss me for all of college and then go, I don’t know, die alone?” Mark says giddily. “Just because you were president of my _frat_? You’re a certified moron, Blake Wheeler.” 

“You're really starting to hurt my feelings,” Blake says faintly but he doesn't look like he's even listening very well. 

“Oh my god,” Mark says kindly. “Would you please shut up and kiss me.” 

Blake follows instructions.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] The Omega Phi Gamma Handbook of Vice-Presidential Duties](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18430424) by [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/pseuds/Annapods)




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